


The Last Pidge

by goshdarndangit



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Depression, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Multi, Other, Pidge | Katie Holt-centric, Sad The Whole Time, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 09:09:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11779944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goshdarndangit/pseuds/goshdarndangit
Summary: Pidge is the last paladin. Pidge is the last Gunderson in space. Pidge is alone. Pidge is alone for a long, long time.





	The Last Pidge

The first thing Pidge did was go to the Olkari. Her eyes were stained red and tear tracks cut canals through her cheeks. She’s met with cheers, she’s met with concern. 

“Paladin Pidge, tell us what happened! Where are the other paladins?” She’s forced to explain the accident, the explosion, the well-timed trap that they couldn’t maneuver themselves out of. At least that disgusting mirage of Shiro was gone now, maybe the real Shiro was out there. Maybe he was already dead and gone, just like the rest of them.

The new Blue Lion was an Olkarion boy named Ryder, Ryner’s nephew or closest thing to it as Pidge understood. She thinks he was the boy that first showed them what the Olkarion’s could do, what they were capable of. He’s a good fit, his shyness doesn’t overshine his good nature and easy smile. He touched Pidge’s arm and she shook him off, she had to say goodbye to Green.

She was the new paladin of the Black Lion. She had to be.

It was funny, really. Pidge never really saw herself as the leader. She was the leg, the technical analyst, the gizmo with computers. She wasn’t a leader. Not like her father, not like her brother, not like Shiro or Keith or Lance. In the end, she supposed, she was nothing without them.

Voltron had to be repaired, it had to be piloted, it had to be the small light in the dark that kept everyone hoping for a better tomorrow. As she fixes up Blue Lion, she whirrs mournfully and Pidge cannot help but break down into sobs. She made sure Ryder didn’t see her. A leader never cries, a leader keeps up a strong face and supports her teammates. Pidge was a leader now and no amount of tears was going to change that.

The Green Lion came next, a pretty Galran boy named Azai. His fingers work more nimbly than hers ever could, but his creative mind was what the Galran empire denied. That same creative mind got him into more trouble than he could imagine, well, that creative mind and the fact that he wasn’t as Galran as the Empire wished him to be. Some kind of mix, it seemed, fuzzy wings that reminded her of a bat sprouted from his back and his face was exceedingly flat. Surly and bitter, his words were harsh but true.

“No use crying about it,” he had grunted to her while making some modification to Green, “we all lost something or another in this war, you aint no different.” Pidge supposed he was right. She gave him two weeks on cleaning detail, and everything was made sure to be spotless or else he’d have to do it again.

Allura and Coran. They had decked themselves out in pink, Coran was used to losing men but Allura? She was a child, just like Pidge was. Is. Used to be. In her spare time, which there wasn’t a whole lot of, she’d sit with Allura and fiddle on the computer. Sometimes they’d sit in silence, sometimes they’d talk about the weather, sometimes they’d talk about the war. They wouldn’t cry though, it sometimes seemed like they couldn’t anymore. Sometimes, they’d fall asleep in each other’s arms. Sometimes, they’d wake up to Coran sleeping on the floor next to them and in those times, and only those times, Pidge felt safe.

Red saw Allura’s anger, saw the way she looked at Azai, saw the way she’d destroy any fighting dummy foolish enough to pop up at her. In the end, Red ended up choosing Allura and Allura had no complaint. Pidge offered her time and time again to pilot Black (please, please pilot Black) but she denied it, said it was Pidge’s job now. She wanted to ride in the lion that was once her fathers. She said that that was her destiny. Pidge punched Black’s console and Black shut off for a week.

The war still waged and Lotor believed Voltron to be out of the way, he continued his conquesting in his Empire’s name. Disgusting little vermin. Pidge grew angrier and angrier, the sadness came less and less. Pidge feared she was starting to lose herself. She remembered something Coran said to her, “Grief can do funny things to a persons mind.”

She takes Ryder and Azai out to gather supplies, she smiled when she felt the weight of a new communications device in her hand. Ryder said it was the first time she’d smiled in the months they’d been with her.

One last paladin to find, and then they could go back to being Voltron, the defender of the galaxy against the Galran Empire. It’s funny, Pidge mused again, the bond that Allura and Azai have made. Maybe she felt guilt over Keith, over how she treated him. They bond in their anger, Azai’s bitterness matches Allura’s rage.

It ends up being Shay that pilots Yellow. Funny, Pidge mused, funny funny.

They could form Voltron, they could form the weapons, they could move with mechanical accuracy but Pidge wanted to scream every time she’d hear Ryder crack a joke to Azai and Azai angrily throw an insult back. She’d almost told Lance and Keith to shut up and focus, instead she just says shut up and focus. She was the leader now, in action, she couldn’t let herself slip. Not now. Not until Lotor was nothing but a crisp underneath the very boot of Voltron, like a piece of dirt.

They fought well together.

One night they were in the castle, silently eating dinner together before Ryder burst out into tears. “We’re a team, aren’t we? Then why does it feel like we’re working for the Galran Empire? We’re not machines!” Shay went to comfort him. Azai told him to shutup and quit being such an infant about it. Allura looked away. Pidge stood up, all eyes were on her, and smiled.

“Come on, we’re close to winning. That’s gotta count for something right? No need to cry about it.” Shiro always told her that part of being a leader was to comfort her comrades, to make sure that they were taken care of before yourself. Pidge realized how selfish she’d been, how she was letting her own anger fester and control. She couldn’t find it in herself to let go.

After that Pidge tried to smile more. She put comfort into her words, softened them. Azai scoffed at her and Pidge lost her facade, but just for a moment. She had to be a good leader. Old Pidge would have made a great leader, she reasoned with herself, always so happy and excitable, the best thing for team morale.

It had been two years since she’d lost all of her teammates. It had been two years since she stopped looking for her father and brother. It had been two months since she stopped looking for the real Shiro. Those things weren’t going to help New Pidge, they would just hinder her. That’s what she told herself.

Ryder was still scared of her, Azai became increasingly angry at her bright demeanor, Allura knew there was something wrong, Shay would cry herself to sleep in Hunk’s bunk. It was fine. It was all fine. It would all be fine.

It was all fine until they lost Coran. A stray bullet in an attack on the castle. Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. They couldn’t even hold a funeral, there wasn’t enough time. Allura wears pink for months after that, finally allowing her rage to consume her. Pidge followed suit. The others knew Coran for his bravery, for his kindness to him when one of their fellow paladins and leader seemed to offer none. They mourned for him just as powerfully as Pidge and Allura had.

The second time Pidge realized something needed to change was when Shay knocked on her door and told Pidge the harsh reality of what they were doing. “I can’t recognize who we are anymore,” she told her, “we don’t even help people anymore, we just kill.”

“It’s a war,” Pidge coldly replied, and she never knew her voice could become that icy.

“It’s a slaughter, for all the Galran soldiers we kill there are twenty more civilizations that are murdered under our nose. I don’t want any part of this, Pidge.” Pidge didn’t say anything as she left. Didn’t say anything as Azai asked why one of the pods was missing.

Finally, at training, she simply said, “We need a new Yellow paladin.”

Yellow was heartbroken, two paladins lost within such a close time span. One to war and the other for homesickness and disgust. Yellow wasn’t sure that she wanted a new paladin, Pidge sat with Yellow, sang to her and tuned up the parts that needed tuning. Yellow cried at night, a low mournful cry that Blue echoed. Green knew there was nothing to be done but she called to Pidge and Pidge came, carefully checking wires and polishing the dash. Red stewed in her own anger, chittering and turned gears that shouldn’t have been turned. Pidge saw to Red as well.

Black was silent.

But Pidge saw the point to Shay’s message. A fighting machine is not a defender of the universe, it is just a fighting machine. A month later, Yellow found another match though her capacity for trust had been greatly severed. A human woman that found herself lost in space. She was heavier set and darker skinned with black hair that reached to her shoulders. Pidge forced herself to not think about Hunk. The woman was courteous and affectionate, pulling Azai and Ryder into a hug all at once. Her name was Liz, short for Eliza, which was short for Elizabeth, but they could call her Liz if they wanted to.

It had been three and a half years since she’d lost most of her friends, and she’d almost forgotten she’d turned eighteen. Looking in the mirror, she only saw a stranger. Her hair was cut short now, right to the scalp. A long scar ran down her face, splitting it nearly in two. Damn that one hurt. One of her eyes was milky white, the left one to be exact, with a splash scar from the chemicals she accidentally dropped onto her face. Could barely see out of that one now. Stupid. She smiled at the memory. Stupid stupid.

Allura had reached the fullest of her height, face narrowing out and hair cut short. She, however, could still pull it into a small ponytail. Various scars littered her body, but Pidge’s body held the same story. All of theirs did. She was just nineteen yet had to see so much. Pidge mourned the loss of her childhood, mourned the loss of her people in a way Allura no longer did. Pidge never did mourn for the loss of herself.

Ryder was at the tallest he’d be, too, and it was pretty tall for an Olkarion. Pidge was frustrated that he even towered above her at five foot six inches compared to her five foot two inches ass. He filled out nicely, muscular and a pointed face. An atypical Olkarion, perhaps, but Pidge didn’t mind so much. He was a nice addition to the team, always had a smile on his face and jokes to crack. It even kept Azai in a lighter mood than he would have been if Ryder wasn’t there.

Azai had also filled out, even if he hadn’t grown much to his chagrin. The plum purple fur he had darkened into an inky black with the faintest hints of purple. Pidge equated it to the darkness of a distant galaxy with just the barest hints of a purple light to guide the way, Azai blushed and called her a useless romantic with too many words to say.

Liz’s heavier set had turned out to be the perfect vehicle for a broad, muscular body that Pidge often found herself admiring. The woman is twenty seven, she’d admonish herself, get yourself together. Liz kept her hair long and often braided it, she had a bit of a temper and would curse at Yellow’s console in Portuguese when she thought no one was listening, but quickly apologize to the lion. Yellow liked her and Pidge silently begged that she stay.

One day Azai was raging about something or another, probably about how Green kept correcting the way he spoke and Pidge broke out into laughter, “Oh quiznak, just tell Green to mind her business, but she might purposefully break down to spite you.” They all froze, unsure what to do seeing their captain so jovial, but Ryder quickly began laughing as well which set off a chain.

Allura smiled and Pidge wanted so desperately for her to never stop smiling. It had been so long since she’d seen such a genuine one, and she still remembered when it was something she wore everyday to greet the paladins. The things she took for granted.

It was a winning battle, Pidge realized one day when Voltron easily beat back a fleet of Galran cruisers. Then she realized how close they were to Lotor and his generals. She immediately threw up when she got to her bunk, hoping to any God or Goddess there was that she didn’t just jinx them.

But she didn’t. As Acxa begged Pidge to know if Keith was okay, to know where he is, where her brother was, Pidge didn’t hesitate in pulling the trigger.

It was another year until they reached Lotor and Pidge realized how pathetically young she was. How pathetically young they all were. Pidge was nineteen, an age where she’d probably be graduating from the garrison and going on her very first mission. Allura was twenty, maybe even taking the throne if Altea was still around. Ryder was seventeen. The only thought Pidge could muster was the song Dancing Queen and it made her laugh, only Liz understood the joke. Liz was twenty eight, would have been starting a family probably, if she were back on Earth. Azai was nineteen, like her, but quiznak knows where he would have been at this point. Probably executed for sassing a superior.

Pidge was scared. She hadn’t felt fear like this since the accident, which is what she’d taken to calling the explosion that killed her friends, it was a hot, body-encompassing fear that took sweaty pits to a whole new level. She laughed. Her teammates thought she was losing her mind. “Full speed ahead boys, warp speed.” She never could remember how that line went in Star Trek.

“There is no such thing as warp speed for Voltron,” Allura informs quizzically, “unless you made an upgrade-”

“Beam us up Scotty!” Liz guffawed.

“It’s from a movie, a human movie, remind me to show to all of you if we get out of this alive.”

“Oh shut up and focus,” Azai snapped.

“Come on Azai,” Ryder argued, “human culture is so fascinating I’d love to see one of their movies. What are they like, Pidge?”

Pidge paused, “Well, everyone’s either good or bad, the way to do things is always clear, the good guy always trumps the bad guy and there’s always a happy ending.”

“You idealists,” was all Azai could mutter. Pidge laughed but it was true. Humans were stupidly idealistic.

“Damn straight Azai, now lets bring this home.”

In the end Lotor met the business end of Pidge’s fist, then the business end of Allura’s bayard. It was an incredibly messy affair, the whole thing, and looking back at it Pidge didn’t expect it to be so easy to kill Lotor. For quiznak’s sake he begged for his life. All that lead up, all that loss, for a smarmy little prince who ended up begging in his last moments of life. She asked Allura if it made her feel any better and she still hasn’t given Pidge an answer.

That was it. It was the end. Any opposition was crushed and the Galran citizens were offered freedom. Galran generals were tried for their war crimes and soldiers were a case-by-case situation. Pidge knew what it felt like to do something that didn’t feel like your own will. Above it all stood the paladins, the ones that saved them all. The ones that saved the galaxy, nay, the universe. Allura gave some diplomatic speech about how she’ll marry a member of Galran nobility to forever tie the Altean and Galran people. A sign of peace. Always sacrificing that girl.

Ryder hopped onto the mic before anyone could stop him. “But the real people we have to thank,” and the crowd quieted down, “are the paladins that came before us. The ones that paved the way for peace and allowed us to be who we are. The real person we have to thank is our leader Pidge, who led us through the darkness into the light. The one that showed us a happy ending is possible.” The crowd was silent, some were crying. Thunderous applause was soon heard after, cheering and crying and Pidge thinks she was also crying. It had been a long time since she cried.

In the end, a new capital was made right in the heart of the former Galran Empire. Statues were erected everywhere, but only in the capital was there a statue that Pidge visited everyday. It was based off of the oldest Pidge had tucked away in her back pocket, the five of them standing together. Lance had bunny ears up behind Shiros head, Keith was angrily batting Lance’s hand away as he tried to do the same to him, Hunk had Pidge in his arms. It was the most sentimental Pidge ever let herself get, and she was determined to make sure that was the likeness was captured.

It was.

Everyday Pidge went there, mostly to eat lunch. Allura was off doing political things with her new husband, who Pidge heard was an extremely kind and extremely malleable man. Pidge asked Allura if they were going to have children and Allura sighed, “I do suppose we have to, don’t we?” It wasn’t a happy marriage, but it was a content one.

Pidge’s new job was, well, she didn’t quite know. She thinks she was just the face of the New Republic, the oldest and original paladin. She had to give already-written speeches from teleprompters and smile for the cameras. They asked if she could grow her hair out again and she shaved her head. They didn’t ask her to change cosmetics again, not even for her eye.

“Lovely day, isn’t it?” that soft voice interrupted Pidge one day while she was eating, well, also something she didn’t quite know. She was twenty-one, in her prime, and was carrying out her life as someone who’d been alive for seventy years. It wasn’t often that someone tried to talk to her. Pidge turned to see a beautiful woman standing before her. She stood at eight feet - why were so many aliens so tall? - and was covered in pinkish purple scales save for the tuft of dark purple fur around her neck. Her face was humanoid, animal-like, and reptilian all at the same time. Her nose and mouth were protruded like a muzzle yet her face sloped back into snake-like slits. Though she had no hair, Pidge would later figure out that she also had that same tuft of fur around her hips.

It wasn’t love at first sight, because all Pidge replied with was, “Who are you?” The woman tittered a laugh, setting her briefcase down and sitting next to Pidge.

“K’mirtalin,” she replied and before Pidge could say anything, “just call me Talia. This statue is beautiful, isn’t it? I suppose you would think so, you’re in it. Forgive me but you look nothing like that now, I can barely recognize you.”

Pidge didn’t speak, just kept eating. Eventually, after a couple swallows, “Yeah.”

They ate lunch together for the next couple of weeks, Talia did most of the talking and Pidge responded with one or even two word answers. The alien didn’t seem too keen on giving up so Pidge gave up on trying to ignore her.

Funnily enough, they were married - it was called linked - later that year. Pidge was a solid twenty-one and Talia was twenty-nine, Pidge even learned how to pronounce K’mirtalin. Pidge didn’t work a whole lot after that, she mostly just laid in bed and ate. Slowly the distinct muscles began to melt away into mush.

One day K’mirtalin came home with rage boiling over, yelling at Pidge to get up, walk around, anything except laying around all day. “It’s all you do! I don’t turgen care if you don’t go back to work, but I come home and all you are doing is sitting there eating the quiznak I bought yesterday.”

Pidge was quiet for a while after that, Talia waited for an answer. They’d been married, no, linked for a year. “We could go back to Earth,” she mumbled.

Talia started at that, “What? You know that Earth is on the banlist.”

Pidge continued as if she didn’t ever hear her, “And we could go see my mom and I’d introduce you to her and she’d love you because that’s what my mom does, loves everybody. Well not everybody, but you get what I mean.”

“You’re talking absolute nonsense I’m going to-”

“And then we can have a proper marriage and have a wedding and my mom can walk me down the aisle and-”

“For fucks sake Pidge what’s marriage?” That stopped Pidge. That’s right, she wasn’t married, she was linked. That’s what they called it. Allura wasn’t married she was linked. It was so so alien and Pidge couldn’t comprehend it. Why would they call it linked instead of married? It didn’t make sense.

She didn’t realize she was crying until Talia crawled into bed with her, whispering sweet nothings and apologies into her ear. “I’m sorry” and “it’s okay” and “we can have a… wedding if you want” and “I love you.” I love you. Pidge had never even said that to her. They were married, no not married they were linked, and Pidge had never even told her that she loved her. The paladins, the new paladins, were off doing their own exciting thing, bringing peace and whatnot. Allura was smoothing over long-contested political relationships. Pidge was sitting at home wasting away.

Pidge started drinking after that. Whatever fat there was wasted away into bone. For a reason Pidge didn’t know, Talia never unlinked the two of them. Never had a wedding either. Pidge supposed that, for a governor and then an adviser and then a president, having a paladin for a wife was an important political move. Bless Talia, Pidge thought, because she always pretended to love me. A smile crossed her face.

She knew she’d never actually be happy again. There were some blissful moments where she could almost forget she lost everything, almost forget that her mom was still on Earth believing that her entire family was dead. Well, they were weren’t they?

Pidge was forty-seven when Earth was removed from the banlist. Her mother died from a car accident a year prior. Pidge kept drinking.

Pidge was fifty-four when she finally stopped drinking and, though she was older now, started training her body again. It was a breath of fresh air as her body remembered all the moves. Allura and Ryder and Azai, they all looked the same as they did when they were still fighting. Pidge’s hair was mostly gray now, cut down to the tops of her ears. Scarred faces don’t age well but fuck if anyone commented on it.

She met Allura’s children, half-Galran half-Altean. There were… how many of them now? Seven, Allura commented mildly, and one more on the way. But that’s it.

Azai had been linked and unlinked more than anyone could count, no one able to handle the sourpuss for more than three years. Bless his bitter heart, he came to take care of Pidge when it was her time to duck out permanently.

Ryder returned to his people, eventually becoming the leader of the Olkari people. The economy was led into ruin within the next year and Ryder was assassinated by a non-Olkarion citizen. The funeral was nice, lots of people came.

Liz had passed years ago from some alien disease she ended up contracted, she never lived long enough to be able to return to Earth.

Pidge left the universe when she was seventy-two, “tragically young, for humans,” her youthful wife will comment in tears. They don’t know what tragically young means. Pidge left the world as the last original paladin. Pidge left the universe a shell of the woman she used to be; sad and tired but no longer bitter, no longer angry. Pidge left the world figuring coldness was what awaited her.

She never did get to show them Star Trek.

“Took you long enough.”

It sounded like Ryder, but it wasn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking about how painful it would be if Pidge, the youngest of the paladins, lost all of her teammates. Then I thought, well it's obvious that she wouldn't be the same. I attempted to keep the spirit of the character but I feel like I made her a tad out of character a few times. 
> 
> Regardless, I'm proud of this piece of work and hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> I may make more little oneshots of some scenes that have more details.


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